Tempo Magazine, Spring 2020 | Vol. 22 | Issue 2

SPRING 2020 | VOLUME 22 | ISSUE 2

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Allie Mitchell

A note to our readers,

ART DIRECTOR Sarah Buddelmeyer

I’ve always pictured myself as the girl in the book, snuggled on the couch in the living room, reading about the person I’ll become. But rather than dwelling as a character in someone else’s composition, I yearn to capture parts of self and place them into stories others create. As a college student, I’ve worked to blur the line between childhood and adulthood, working for a career and soaking in education. All the while, I exist in a parallel of sorts—I lean toward the side of blossoming. Rachel Carson, an American marine biologist and author of Silent Spring, says so beautifully, “It was a mere yesterday in the life of the earth that they were there; in nature, time and space are relative matters, perhaps most truly perceived subjectively in occasional flashes of insight, sparked by such a magical hour and place.”

ASSISTANT EDITOR Selena Mendoza WRITERS Massimo Biscardi Michael Cormier Zach Green Andrew Hadaway Andrew Larkin Selena Mendoza Allie Mitchell Anaiya Moore Christopher Nadzio Bryce Ross Connor Steele POETS Courtney Bryant Kim Cameron Mayleigh Flanigan Gabriella Harden Haley Johnson Sabrina Seidl Jessica Small Didi Zacks GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Sarah Buddelmeyer Lindsay Faria PHOTOGRAPHERS Avery Bevins Sarah Buddelmeyer MODELS Avery Bevins Selena Mendoza ADVISORS Colin Burch Scott Mann Coastal Carolina University P.O. Box 261954 Conway, SC 29526-6054 tempoccu@coastal.edu @tempo_ccu

Our TEMPO theme, vigesco, is a combination of growth and comfort, honey-sweetness and sourness, and a parallel of cold and hot. There’s a continuing part to it as well as a sense of starting anew over and over from the beginning. Our logo is a lemon because of its balance of bitter citrus and sweetness. Vigesco is thriving and trying to find balance, but this has extended past the meaning we originally assigned it—it is more than inevitable growth and nothing short of the Golden Mean. According to Greek philosophy, the Golden Mean is the middle way. It is the balance between two extremes—it is the innovation of space. In this Spring edition of TEMPO, we have captured the essence of space and focused on the balance of institution and innovation.

The four categories in TEMPO—interviews, creative writing, research form, and poetry—reverberate a flourishing spirit and new spaces of possibility. We are no larger grounded in singularity but are a part of a united expanse. Thank you, Sarah Buddelmeyer, Selena Mendoza, Avery Bevins, writers, poets, designers, and artists for your contribution and dedication to TEMPO. This vigesco edition is a collective effort towards balance. Let’s color outside the lines and embrace a new season of continuum.

Onward,

TABLE OF CONTENTS THE WHISPERING WORLD WITHIN 2 UNDERSTANDING LIFE THROUGH FOOD 4 WORD VOM BY THE OCEAN 8 THE IVY OF MY MEMORY 9 THE PRIVATE GROUP PLAYLIST 10 FLOURISHING FELLOWSHIP 20 OUT OF REACH 24 THE SUN 28 GRIEVANCES 29 EMOTIONS THAT REQUIRE OTHER LANGUAGES 30 A CELESTIAL PERSPECTIVE 36 FOOTBALL MINDSET AND MENTAL TOUGHNESS 38 SILENT, NO. MORE. 42 LUCID BY THE SEA 43 BLUE LIGHTS TO SPOTLIGHTS 44 NOT TO DRAG IT OUT 48 FALLING SHORT 52 SOUL-SEARCHING IN AN ABYSS OF SPACE 53 SPACE BETWEEN THE GIRL 54 RESEARCH CREATIVE WRITING POETRY INTERVIEW

A PATH TO SUNLIGHT 56 GLOSSARY 60

There once was a child that would run and play and create magical lands with a smile on their face and a chest full of love. They started to age, and that smile began to dim. The magical lands were stripped. They became bombarded with commitments, expectations, rules, and struggle. The child, now a young adult, began to forget who they were in the first place. Looking into the sky on a starry night, they asked for guidance. They were received with nothing but silence. As they drifted off to sleep that same night, a voice spoke in a dream and reminded the now young adult of the once creative, imaginative child. The voice reminded them of the world they once created, their inner world. They regained sight of who they were and have not stopped creating since.

This was a world divided into regions. Within those regions lived individual, creative, and different minds—each mind with its own perspective about the world around it. But in a world of innovation and competition, these individuals must keep moving and evolving. Everything is thrown into hyperdrive. Go, go, go! When one travels so fast, it is easy to zoom past what is right in front of them. It begs the question: How do I keep up? What am I supposed to do next? Am I enough? Before we throw ourselves into another state of hyperdrive, relax… slow down. Let me tell a little story about this mystical place.* The beautiful thing about the universe within is that you are the creator, and being the creator means being the author, director, illustrator, musician, and main character in this self-fashioned universe. You paint the picture and produce the musical flair as the colors dance, telling your story. Your innermost aspirations are inherent, but that alone does not transfer to the world we live in today. Where there is an inner world, there must also be an outer world.

For those blessed with the ability to read this, it means you are human. Being human means we are social creatures—thriving off the energies of one another, soaking in information while sharing and creating new experiences.

Our surroundings hold great power, and with this power comes great responsibility. These surroundings influence our thoughts and actions—positive or negative. We are constantly being fed information on what to believe. Our ideologies are influenced, and we are given a list of laws defining what is “right” or “wrong.”

No longer do we find ourselves scavenging old library books for hours. Information lies at our fingertips at all moments. Is this lightning-fast innovation propelling us forward or holding us back? Let’s be honest, it makes Usain Bolt look like a turtle at the DMV. When our outer world starts to reach dangerous speeds, we must slow down and channel our deepest domain. How do we slow down? How do we ground ourselves in a time where our roots are slowly drifting in the clouds with every other soul being caught in the cycle of this hectic speed of life? We must breathe.

Life is beautiful because that paint brush consists of every single color imaginable. The vibrant, iridescent reds and yellows to the melancholy browns and greens, it is a roller coaster of emotions with each corkscrew and loop teaching new lessons. With each step down this journey of life, we must find balance. When the outer world is yelling and hollering, let us channel our core desires. Get outside. Walk barefoot. Connect with Mother Nature, with yourself. Smile. Dream. Dream big. Dream so big that living for yourself inspires others to do the same.

To create their own reality and establish a balance. Others may look at the outer and inner world as paradoxical,* but it is quite the contrary. When we fully embrace our imagination and channel our own harmonious internal creations, we contribute to a greater reality—a dual space that transcends any other.

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3

by Anaiya Moore

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F

rom the ages of eight to eighteen years old, I aspired to become the world’s greatest chef.

I preferred watching Food Network over cartoons, and I even taught my mother how to cook turkey at the ripe age of eight. It fascinated me how ingredients could come together to make successful recipes with beauty, color, and deliciousness in each bite.

After noticing my clear interest, Ma enrolled me in every cooking class possible, and by the time I entered high school, I was accepted to the Culinary Arts program. Through these years of cooking, I distinguished various aspects of food that interested me more than others. I struggled to make baking one of my culinary strengths, but after accepting and expressing this gap in my skills and experience, my Chef started assigning me various baking tasks in an attempt to push me out of my comfort zone.

First on the agenda: Scones. With pre-existing skepticism, I carefully followed the recipe and awaited the oven timer to buzz. After 20 minutes, they resembled a golden-brown success. When I consumed a bite, however, I quickly realized that I added too much salt.

This malfunction only deepened my dislike for the art of baking. I was overwhelmed with feelings of defeat and stagnant in my efforts to try any new baking recipes.

This experience resembles life. Dreams, goals, and people surround the passions we possess. As media consumers, we enthrall ourselves in education, watching videos, reading books—much like I did with watching Food Network daily. Without a pre-existing fear of failing the recipe, my scones could have potentially come out of the oven and could have been delicious, but my mindset limited those possibilities. This lesson, learned at eighteen, allowed me to let food, one of my greatest joys, guide me through this stage of life.

I started to recognize new life lessons, one being that life is not as complicated as it seems. I learned this lesson through making my favorite dessert: Crème Brûlée.* How ironic that my shift in perspective came from baking a French custard masterpiece?

Growth.

During my time in the Culinary Arts program, my Chef worked hard to expose my class to a variety of cuisines and restaurants. I remember when he took the class to a fine restaurant in Myrtle Beach that served Espresso Crème Brûlée for dessert.

Inspired.

I vowed that I would try to recreate the recipe no matter how great the challenge. Two years later, I finally found a similar Espresso Crème Brûlée recipe. The ingredients included ramekins, coffee beans, cream, sugar, raw sugar, a vanilla bean, a cinnamon stick, and eggs. Is this all? I questioned the simplicity of the ingredients but soon realized that many of life’s delicacies start simply.

When I expressed my production process to others, they replied with how fancy and complicated it must be to accomplish. You all reading might think that as well.

However, I will not only give the recipe but also explain the gems that I gathered from it. You’ll see just how obtainable it is after all.

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Ingredients: 4 Cups of Whipping Cream 1 Cup of Sugar 1/2 Cup of Whole Coffee Beans 1 Cinnamon Stick 1 Vanilla Bean 6 Large Egg Yolks 1 Large Egg

Instructions: First, you must steep the whipping cream with the coffee beans, cinnamon stick, vanilla bean, and sugar in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil and take it off the heat.

Then, preheat the oven to 325 degrees and blend the eggs. Slowly add the cream mixture to the eggs, making sure that the eggs do not scramble. Once it is all mixed, pour the mixture into the ramekin cups. Place the cups in a deep pan with boiling water surrounding them halfway up then bake until the custard is set.

Lastly, add the raw sugar on top. Place in a broiler until the sugar is melted and the top is golden brown.

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Each ingredient symbolizes a part of our lives. As we live, life may be bland and bleak like the whipping cream, but that is when we add further elements that infuse flavor and personality.

Sugar represents the sweet things in life that we love: our hobbies, our families, and our interests. These relationships assist our lives and sweeten the blandness of daily routine.

Coffee beans represent the things that bring us energy, whether it is going to the gym, jumping out of a plane, or whatever excites one about life.

The cinnamon stick represents the spices of life—the difficulties that end in beautiful experiences. Life will not always be sweet, but like the one cinnamon stick in the Crème Brûlée recipe, the spice doesn’t completely take over the flavor. Life is ebb and flow,* a beautiful balance of sweet and salty, spicy or savory.

Vanilla beans are rare and expensive. They represent unique moments that carry time and space. These moments don’t come often enough, so we should hold them at a high value.

Eggs—only seven are needed in total. Much like quality friends, you don’t need too many. The number of eggs in this recipe affect the consistency and taste of the custard. This thought is important when choosing friends and inspirations as well, for they may affect personal character.

If we keep this recipe and ingredient list in mind, we can understand only a few quality elements are required in our own life recipes in order to be content with the product. Each ingredient is imperative for holistic growth and development. The ingredients rely on one another—without one, the others do not succeed.

Let this be a life lesson through food, and may yours be just as fruitful.

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“Word Vom by the Ocean”

By Courtney Bryant Ocean, oh ocean tell me your secrets.

Tell me all you have seen, carried and sank.

What lies beneath the crisp* glass that you display?

You have caused damage, but haven’t we all?

You do a better job at hiding truths, your truths, since your responses are always the same— masked in suspicion, lost in translation.

Sad secrets surface while the light only dances upon your destruction, yet I stray away from this pain.

You carry grace in a rough, soothing way.

I feel comfort in your rhythmic chaos.*

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The Ivy* of My Memory

By Jessica Small Come, say my land is best Come and rest, Come test yourself against me.

Squeeze in tightly ‘Til I can’t breathe.

Inhale me, where I lay beneath your canopy* beneath the trees beneath the blanket of leaves.

You killed to cover me.

Hide me in your rubble Make me humble.

Bury me so deep in the earth you almost forget you planted me.

A seed in your soul.

I’ll grow anew to surprise you.

Dig me up and discard me.

But I’ve grown hardy in the dark.

Beneath the leaves and trees the vast canopy of your heart.

There’s no escaping the ivy of my memory.

Wrapping around the trunk of the heart you sunk.

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by Connor Steele

Our Winnebago was rusted and cream colored, plainly plastered and flaking with a red W painted down the sides—its tops ran infinitely down the length of the busted old camper. We used to live in South Florida, when South Florida still existed.

“I tried to warn them,” my father would say to my mother while his tattoo, a black feather on his right forearm, flexed due to his white knuckling on the steering wheel.

“You did! But no one ever listens to crazy.” My mom snapped back to my father, her red frizzled hair battling the slaps of the hot Texas air.

We had to leave the southern shores-comfort in search of higher ground. The seas are rising with the temperature, but like tortoises, we carried our home on our back.

The four swaying walls of the RV are the only home I’ve ever really known.

“How much longer?” Bella asked.

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“Shut your mouth. We’ll get there when I say,” Pa snapped. My father was an angry man, a psychedelic journeyer whose brains were as fried as his perspectives on a crumbling planet. Only this time, he was right. “I told the others. I told the others. I told the others,” he would say in concession to no one in particular, just speaking it into existence.

“Daddy’s scaring me!” Bella says, clutching onto my shirtsleeve.

“It’s okay, Bell, you know he usually comes to his senses in a day or two.” Bell was my younger sister, my best friend, my only friend.

Bang! Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. My father’s hands veered our Winnebago to the side of the road, his feet pressing hard on the brakes, and we were slowly engulfed in a red dust cloud that covered our movable home.

“Go check on it,” my dad says to Ma. “You go check on it…asshole.”

of grass, huh? Unbelievable.” She huffed off down the road after the spat, leaving Bell and I in the cab with the enraged, useless mechanic.

“Well, I guess we’re hitchhiking from here,” my father said to us as he pulled a bag from the glove compartment and began to roll a joint. “Go stand around back and catch us a ride,” he said to Bell and I as he expertly folded the loose paper around the grass and inhaled on the dirt-like substance.

I swung the crumbling door of our Winnebago. It’s creaking and snapping hinges slapped against the outside wall of our movable house. I turned and asked my pa, “How are we supposed to get a ride?” He slung the still-smoking joint into a half-full ashtray and meandered towards the top of the three steps.

“Gimme your hand,” he said. I did as he said. He manipulated my hand into a thumb up position and said, “Which way you wanna go?”

Dad doesn’t like to be talked to like that. He raised his hands from the sweating wheel of the Winnebago, the black feather tatted on his right arm glistening with sweat and dust, its reflective fletchings just feet from Bell and I—I shield her eyes then mine for what usually comes next. The door closed with a distinct and rusted “thunk.”

“It’s a flat tire. Looks like it took a toll on the bumper too,” my mother reports back safely from outside the burning tin can.

“Does this mean this is home?” Bell asked the man who looked defeated, his head down in his arms that wrapped around the wide wheel, his left hand feverishly rubbing the black feather as if trying to scratch it from his skin.

“Well you gonna get the spare?” My mom shouted back into the cab.

I said, “I don’t know where we’re going, Pa.”

“Ain’t no spare. I traded it for parts about a month ago.” He said.

“Which way you wanna go,” he said. I started pointing in the direction we were already headed.

“Is that what Mr. Frank gave you in that little baggy?

Can you fix the van with that?” I asked.

“Forward, I guess,” I said, hoping this was the answer he was looking for. He twisted my hand so that my thumb was facing towards the front of the RV.

He turned sourly, “I thought I told you to shut your mouth.”

I was vexed, “I thought you said it was part…”

Before I could finish, Ma chimed in, “You really are something special, aren’t you, Alton? How do you suppose you’re gonna fix this hunk-a-shit with half a bag

“That’s it. Now do as I told ya, you too Bell, just like your brother… Now go on.” The flash of the black feather just inches from my face was the last thing I would see before recognizing that undeniable slap of the door.

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“I’m hot. I’m thirsty. Where do you think Ma went?”

Bell asked me. All valid questions, but I stood frozen, unwilling to move the thumb my father so carefully manipulated.

“Ye…ah-yeah. That-that’s him,” I told the stranger. He reached over and opened the door, revealing a dark bird printed into the skin of his right arm and waved to Bell and I as if he wanted us to sit in the cab with him.

“I’m not sure Bell. But any minute now, someone is going to pick us up, with water and plenty of snacks.

Shoot…they might even have an air-conditioner,” Bell and I both smiled at the simple but odd pleasure of cool air.

“It gets pretty windy in the back,” he said. I wanted so badly to sit on the plush potato-sack-like seats and listen to the low humming beats permeating into the oblivion that surrounded me.

I had different dreams than most other kids. They wanted to be astronauts and fighter pilots. I wanted to be what my father told me I was going to be, a Winnebago person—a hopeless wanderer, a helter-skelter seeker of a refuge. But slowly my useless dreams were burning like the bottom of my feet on the Texas asphalt.

“What music is this?” Bell asked the Martian. My eyes were darting, and my ears were yearning. He turned the volume, increasing the static in the beautiful prose then bringing it back down to a rhythmically smooth level—all static absent.

“Tomorrow’s Dust, Tame Impala. It’s good right?”

He responded.

“Much obliged, stranger,” Pa said as he meandered past the cab and goofily lifted himself into the bed of the silver pickup.

“That’s alright, we’ll sit in the back with Pa,” I told him, still unsure of this strange man.

“What’s that?” Bell pointed down the road in the direction we had come—a ball of reddish brown dust plumed to reveal a silver stallion lunging towards us at what seemed to be an unattainable pace.

“Bell, that’s cool water and snacks coming our way!”

Upon closer inspection, the lunging stallion turned into a lurching and coughing mule, a mid 90’s tapped-out Chevy pickup with two blown and one good speaker trickling out a noise and rhythm I had never known before.

A man with black-slicked hair, a white t-shirt, and blue jeans sporting dark aviator sunglasses pulled in front of us—thumbs still frozen forward. “Need a lift?” He asked. Before I could answer, I was interrupted by the unquestionable screech and slam of the Winnebago door, followed by a confused and dirty man wafting and swatting uselessly at a haze of smoke that surrounded him. “Is that your old man?” The Martian man asked.

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“God! Don’t that hot air feel good?” My father asked, talking to no one in particular. I was unfocused on the hot air, only on the short and heavy notes droning from the single audible speaker barely registering in the bed of the windblown pickup. I couldn’t help but feel so utterly lost and found in the morphing of various instruments. For the first time in my life, on a Texas highway, in the bed of a stranger’s truck—I felt light and free, completely lost to the sounds speaking to me… only me.

We passed what only can be described as some strange desert wanderer—her red hair was blown to a nest on top of her pointed head, and she was taking a rakish drag off a dwindling cigarette. Pa shouted and banged on the side of the truck, “Whoa! Whoa!

Slow it up!” It was my mother. Pa said, “Need a ride, gorgeous?” She took a last heaving pull from her dying cigarette and flicked the bud into the red sand as she hopped in the cab with the strange man.

“I dig your music,” she said to the Martian man.

“Music is important and should be cultivated carefully,” he responded. Ma smiled and touched his arm—Pa was either too stoned or didn’t care to notice.

I could feel my ears burning when Ma asked, “What song is this?”

He said, “It’s Tame Impala’s ‘Mind Mischief.’”

We eventually rolled to a stop at an abandoned gas station, the rusted pumps and broken shop windows calling me into its dark and shadowy space. The gas station had obviously been abandoned for many years.

“Well it seems to me this place may be lacking spare tires,” the stranger said to us as he lifted himself from the cab and pulled a piece of Space Chew bubblegum from his pocket.

only way to get there is through portals and tubes. It’s a place beyond what is conceivable, a place of death, and rebirth…it’s a new life. It’s the void,” he told me as he took a drag off the fresh cigarette.

I couldn’t believe what he was telling me, it all sounded so mystical.

“Have you been there mister?” Bell asked.

“Not yet, no one has,” he answered.

“Think you could carry us on down to the next station?

No point in staring at a no-for-good fix station,” Pa said as he pulled some brown grass from a baggie stashed in his back pocket. “Care to partake? It would be an honor to smoke a spliff with a…Captain.”

“No thanks,” the Captain said, flicking his cigarette into the dirt. “Ya know… I didn’t catch your name…Stranger.”

“That’s the gum they use for them space men,” Pa said, nudging Ma. “That stuff is for gravity sickness or something. Who are you? What are you about, stranger?” Pa asked the strange man. The Martian chuckled as he glanced around, popping a piece into his mouth.

“Alexander…Captain Alexander. And yes, the gum helps with the gravity sickness.”

“So you been to the stars, mister?” Bell asked Captain Alexander answered with a smirk, “Well…yes young lady. Something like that.”

“Captain, huh?” Pa said as his foot wrestled then smashed a small reddish pebble into the dry, red sand.

“Are you a believer in the void?” Captain asked Pa. Pa, hazed and dirty, answered with a flash of the black feather on his forearm, “I dig the meaning, but I don’t dig the mission,” he said.

“He’s full-a-shit,” Ma remarked as she placed a newly lit cigarette between her lips.

“You better watch your mo-” Before Pa could finish his hissed remark, the stranger spoke up.

“It seems like everyone thinks that now. There’s more out there than you think.” He interrupted.

“What’s the void?” I asked.

Pa said, “Don’t worry about things that don’t concern you.”

Leaning into the tapped-out Chevy, the stranger grabbed a fresh cigarette and tuned the radio (“Underwater Cyber-World” by Nick Bampton). “It’s a place beyond what we can see, a place so far away, that the

“The name’s Alton, that’s my son Griffin, my daughter Bella, and my wife Delilah,” Pa said pointing to each of us as he lit a joint and puffed.

The Captain smiled as we scampered into the back of the truck, “Well, it’s an honor to be your Captain.”

We were somewhere outside of Palo Duro Canyon as dusk sank into the rolling hills, the red dirt matched by the descending red hues of the sky. I again found myself light, free, even mystical as the Captain’s music continued drowning through the slender back window.

“What’s this sound?” I shouted through the glass. “‘Texas Sun,’ by Leon Bridges. You like it?” He shouted back over his shoulder.

My father’s brown hair was windswept, exposing the underlying grey streaks as he turned his hands deep in the corner of the truck, rolling a third or fourth joint into pearly perfection. And for the first time, I felt ashamed of his behavior. I turned and wrapped my arm around Bella. Looking out over the endless ridges and hills at the layered rock of differing colors and ahead as the sun drifted below the horizon, it wasn’t just good—it was almost perfect.

We rolled into a nameless wanderer’s truck stop. The lights were on, and they appeared to have tires.

“Alton!” Ma shouted as her door swung open. “Alton!” she yelled again. “Wake up, ya lazy son of a bitch!” she yelled into the back with no response. Irritated, she drifted over to the tailgate and opened it. As the gate slammed to it’s perpendicular position, Pa’s head and body fell flat.

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“I can’t, Alton, I can’t deal with it. We’re not twenty anymore! I can’t put up with this shit anymore,” she yelled at his limp, lifeless body. “Keep an eye on your pathetic father,” Ma said as she huffed off. Bella and I watched Ma wander and mutter towards the dimly lit sky as the Chevy’s motor sputtered and shook to a halt.

I heard the Captain mutter then climb out of the truck.

“Is he gonna be okay?” he asked.

“He’ll wake up in an hour or so. At least, he usually does,” I answered.

“How about her?” looking down the road at Ma. “Where’s she going?”

“She’ll be back in an hour or so,” Bella answered.

He told me, “‘Open Your Eyes’ by STRFKR.” We rode down the long, straight highway back to where we abandoned the Winnebago. The sounds pumping in the air around us were incredible. I was no longer on a highway to nowhere, I was in a shuttle gliding through time.

Somewhere along the way, we saw a wandering desert person, my mother. Her hair was matted and frizzy. She had stopped at an outlook that peered over the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. We veered from the road to pick her up, but she was still, unmoving, entranced by the natural beauty of the landscape.

The Captain looked around at the fluorescent truck stop, the people wandering in and out, he looked at Bella and I and asked, “You know what kind of tire to get?”

“Care to join?” She shouted back at the headlights.

“Yeah I think so,” I responded, but I had no idea.

I ventured to the edge of the rocky red outlook. The dry, crumbling hills of the canyon riverbed in my mind, the Captain played “You” by Petit Biscuit through a single usable speaker trickling its noise out over the expanse. Across the canyon, across an unknown expanse, a crimson light flickered in the distance. The glowing orb lifted, pushing and muscling through the sky.

The Captain removed the keys from the ignition, and we crawled wearily from the cab. “It sure is something, isn’t it?” The Captain asked.

“Objective X,” the Captain said.

“What’s objective X?” I asked.

“It’s the space program I’m a part of,” he responded.

The Captain bought the tire and put it in the bed, next to my still-comatose father. “It’s getting a bit chilled outside, you guys should ride in the front with me,” the Captain suggested. To this, I had no objections; neither did Bell. As she got comfortable on the plush potato-sack seat, Captain cranked the key and the old Chevy. As it couched and lurched to life, he patted the dash as if to say, “Good girl.” The dash was a light sun-bleached brown with stickers and various patches placed eclectically. Among the stickers was a small silver pin. It was a small rocket; I plucked it from the dash running my fingers over the raised edges.

“What does it say?” Bell asked.

“Ad Infinitum, Et Ultra... to infinity…and beyond,” the Captain answered.

The radio came to life and drowned the cabin in glorious beats.

“What song is this?” I asked the Captain.

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I stared at him, wanting to know more.

“They send volunteers into the unknown…into the void.

They send them to distant planets. Once they arrive to their destination, they relay whether the planet is livable.

We’ve had little success,” the Captain said.

I turned to watch the shuttle continue its journey into the unknown. The dark, open air filled my burning lungs.

The rocket’s glare in the pitch night reflected like a mirror in my eyes. A cool gentle breeze pushed through my body; it felt as if red ash were falling all around me. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“You’ve been in one of those?” I asked the Captain.

“Well, we needed much larger rockets to propel us into the unknown. I was a test pilot tasked with finding flaws in the new equipment. Luckily, it worked just fine,” he answered.

“Why haven’t you gone to the unknown…ya know… into the void?”

“The void can be a scary place, a place of unknowns, a place you may never return. A lot of us astronauts live close to the void. It’s a constant presence, an eerie and beautiful labyrinth.” He rolled up his sleeves, revealing a raven etched into his skin. “That’s why I have this tattoo, to remember those who have gone before me… and those who will go after me.” The Captain smiled at me then towards the rocket boosting into the outer realm.

“I can do it!” She said.

“I know you can,” I said to her.

Instantaneously, I decided that I was not going to be what my father wanted me to be. Those dreams burned in the backlashing flames of the distant beastly object. I was going to venture into the our universe. I was going to save the world.

Luckily, the tire I chose from the station was the right size for our festering tin can of an R.V. “Thanks for the lift, stranger,” Pa said to the Captain.

The Captain leaned from the open driver side window, “Don’t mention it, stranger. See you around, kid.” With a sputter and “Gila” by Beach House gently seeping from the cab, the Captain left us in a haze, shrouded in darkness.

I did everything I could after we arrived to our colony of Winnebago people. I read and learned about the mechanisms in motors and how a combustible engine runs. Most of this knowledge came from scraps and booklets I could scrounge up from the glove boxes and storage holds of old and worn out Winnebagos.

Bell and I would lay on the roof of the R.V. and map the stars by drawing them on the backs of pizza boxes. But what I really lived for was what could be seen from the tops of the red dirt mounds on the southeast corner of the park. The engines would roar with life—faster, then faster, then faster, faster, faster faster fasterfaster… The brave men on that starship were on a mission, and I could feel it all around me through the ground. I could smell it in the air. I wanted… No, I needed to be in that club.

I had “Planet Junior” by Babe Rainbow trickling through an old audio player, I had found it when I was looking through some of the R.V.s for magazines and thought that the owner would not miss it or even know that it was gone in the first place.

My eighteenth birthday had come and gone with the breeze. I received only a few “happy birthday” wishes and felt particularly drained by my usual daily chores.

“Calling all able-bodied men…calling all able-bodied men…Please report to SpaceX Exploration Center.”

It came over the radio, cutting off a song. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; it was more beautiful than the music. I grabbed my duffel bag from an area in the R.V. that I guess I called my own. I looked around and placed my music player on the table for the one person I would be leaving behind, Bella. I left for the Space X base 15 miles down the road.

My thumb was sore from sticking it in the direction I wanted to go, a handful of cars screamed past this desert wanderer. They did not slow, and only the confused beats of songs I’d never heard before were left in the trail of their wake. They were little company. Once I got to the building, a massive white rectangle with squares jetting out in linear directions. A little double door with “Space X” printed above them was the only entrance into the building.

The hallway was long and full of pictures from the past, pictures of smiling men in front of a blue backdrop with, “Ad infinitum, et ultra,” printed in white lettering above each of them.

“To infinity and beyond.” I mumbled to myself.

“What can I help you with?” a voice said.

“I wanna be a spaceman,” Bell said to me.

I looked over to see a young man dressed in a white uniform.

“Astronaut…you want to be an astronaut,” I answered her. “If you want to be an astronaut, you have to be smart! Because astronauts are smart.”

“What song is this?” I asked, inquiring to find out what music the young man was seemingly listening to behind the counter.

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“‘Mind Mischief’ by Tame Impala,” the man answered.

“They’re quite the vibe,” I said.

“What can I help you with,” the man asked as he turned the noise down.

“I’m here for the program…the volunteer program, I heard it over the radio,” I responded to him, unintentionally sounding a bit lost as the man remained expressionless during the exchange.

He picked up a phone behind the counter to mumble, “Someone is here for the program…mmhm… yes sir… yes sir…right away sir.” Click.

The doors at the end of the long hallway swung open as the young man disregarded my presence and slowly increased the noise flooding over his desk and to my feet. Three men, all fitted in some sort of military apparel, clean and precise, all approached me. I was dirty.

I had blue jeans, the bottoms flared too wide which revealed my sandals and my red dust-stained toes. I had a duffel bag over my right shoulder, which bunched up my green t-shirt. I felt out of place and uncomfortable as the trio of men eyed the entire length of me.

“Right this way, young man,” said one of the men.

I did as he said. He escorted me a short way down the hall as the two others followed closely behind as if somehow recording my movements.

Stopping at a door somewhere in-between the entrance I came in at and the door at the end of the long hallway, “Right this way, son,” the first man said as he swung the door open, revealing a small doctors office.

My weight, my height, and my health were tested. I was asked the easy questions (do you smoke, drink, have allergies, that sort of thing). “Before you waste your time, I just want to say I’ve never been to college or anything like that…”

The man stopped what he was doing and placed his hand on my shoulder and smiled lightly, “It’s not your job to study or document these places, son. It’s your job to survive the journey.”

I felt my heart quicken and my palms sweat, “I need.

I gotta… I’m n…. I’m not sure about this,” came flying from my lips as I scampered to the door of the exam room. I didn’t make it into the hallway even before I was stopped by the trio of mystery military men, who grabbed me and forced me against the door of the exam room.

“It was voluntary, you know? You coming here,” one of the men grunted into my ear.

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“Thank you, gentlemen,” the doctor said, still unmoved, reviewing his notes on the circular chair. “You see, no one is willing to go to the unknown anymore.

And quite honestly how could I blame them, that hallway is filled with pictures of the ones who never came back.” He looked at his notes and pointed to a spot on the paper, “Unluckily for you, my friend, you are the perfect body weight and height for the cockpit of our new spaceship.”

The examiner explained to me our location is less than ideal for launching rockets, “The hot thin air could easily cause destabilization issues among the rockets, and we are seated very far north of the equator, lacking that natural push the rotational force of the Earth would give us if we were closer.”

I had no idea what any of this meant, I only knew I may be in deep trouble.

“What do you mean when you say… destabilization?”

I asked.

“If, god forbid, there is a malfunction, the debris field would be catastrophic considering the growing population in Texas.” The examiner’s answer was vague and un-warming. Looking down at his notes, he continued, “Preferably we would launch out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, the site that most previous space missions have launched from, but the launch base is virtually underwater along with most of the coast and Southern Florida.

But I’m sure you’re well aware of this.”

I thought I might be able to make a run for it if I could somehow get around the three goons designated to keep me there. I was scanning the room when the examiner looked at me. “You could be the one,” he said.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Well, if you make it to the far reaches, the outer realms and you survive…you’ll be a hero, the savior of our planet. If you don’t and you die, well… you’ll be forever remembered as someone who willed a change in the existence of humanity,” he answered.

I looked at the examiner, flashes of my meaningless life under the wing of my father began to reel. “Underwater Cyber-World” by Nick Bampton was ringing in my mind—I never wanted to be a Winnebago person, a helpless wanderer waiting for a chance. This was my goddamn chance.

As if it were my choice or not, I stood above the examiner who rose from his circular chair to meet my eyes. I took a deep breath and exhaled, “So where are we going?” I asked as I shook the examiner’s hand.

I was assigned a project: Nangs. Code name: Alamo (“Nangs” by Tame Impala). I knew the Alamo had fallen during the Texas Revolution, that the name connotes a sort of bad omen onto the already dangerous mission.

But in a way I felt honored, to be referenced to such a historical event.

My mission was simple: Explore the outer realm past the horizon, past the void. My ultimate target was to reach Kepler-186f—a planet whose orbit mirrors our own and exists in a habitable position relative to its sun. The only problem was Kepler-186f was 178.5 parsecs from where I sat (19 trillion miles = 1 parsec).

I knew little of what the scientists spoke about, but they seemed determined and confident in the mission.

I also knew I was not going to return to Earth for the remainder of my existence. I recalled the time we ventured to a rocky outcropping overlooking the Palo Duro Canyon; I closed my eyes and stared into the red rocky, dry, crumbling hills. Deep breaths of the cool, crisp open air pushed through my body and lungs. The word, “Alamo,” kept slipping in and out of my mind: quite literally, I was the Alamo, the final stand, the final mission.

are composed of thin strands of muscles like overused, overstretched, and overlooked rubber bands. I feel like an overgrown baby whose muscles are 18 years past infancy but still, somehow, the same size.

When you’re hurtling through nothingness in a tin can, the expanse of the void can take ahold of you; the darkness can take you to places you didn’t want to go.

I think of things differently. Like my father. I realized that through him, I had been surrounded by the void my entire life. The emptiness this made me feel was scarier than the dark and quiet space. But I was a hero now, on my way, to save the world.

I thought about my family often and would play songs by memory that my sister and I were fond of like “Open Your Eyes” by STRFKR—so for just a moment, I would not exist alone in the void, but with her, together, vibing, bobbing, and tapping, to the same beat that would link us through time and space.

I was crammed into the small space of the shuttle as the hatch behind me closed and sealed. It hissed and moaned as the pressure began to equalize. I began to cry. I had left Bella on Earth, alone. I thought about the song I had left on the audio player for her, “Apocalypse”

by Cigarettes After Sex. The engines began to make loud shuttering sounds beneath me. The ship began to shake and sway into the sky. I could feel my ribs squish into my spine. I closed my eyes until I finally felt weightless.

Space is dark. The small shuttles and debris of failed missions are the only thing reflecting the magnificent light given off by the sun. My ship and I narrowly made it through the debris field. Space is also incredibly quiet. I missed my music, and Bell too.

A study done by NASA says, “Astronauts experience up to 20 percent loss of muscle mass on space flights lasting five to 11 days.” I’ve been up here floating through the cosmos in my tin liferaft for 142 days, 4 hours, and 17 minutes (“142” by Inner Wave). I’m here to tell you that regardless of your physical condition on Earth, in space you will slowly be reduced to a string bean of a man. My antigravity muscles haven’t felt the pull of heavenly gravity. My legs, arms, back, and neck 17

I could see through the darkness a glimmer, an orb of light. I could see my destination; I could see my long journey coming to an end. The place where I would wait for humanity to catch up to my accomplishment.

The place I would be waiting patiently for Bell. Patiently waiting for my beloved music.

“It’s the place where everything is destroyed and created in the same instance. I like to keep it close,” I responded.

Grabbing a handful of the red sand, she smirked a bit then looked off into the distance as she slowly let the sand down from her grasp.

“Why do you come up here?” She asked.

It’s been seven years since Griffin has disappeared, not a single letter, postcard or smoke signal that could validate his existence appeared on any horizontal plane.

I chose to look vertically, towards the stars, towards the void to validate his existence. I could feel that somewhere between the point of oblivion and my position, my older brother was still with me.

I still wandered from the troves of Winnebago people to the red dirt hills in the southeast corner of the park.

Sitting in the red dirt as dusk fell upon me, I reached for the tapped-out audio player Griffin had left me and pressed play. The sound cosmically leaked out of the single usable speaker, crackly but still audible. “These Days” by Jackson Browne reminded me that I didn’t want Griffin to return. He was on his own plane of existence, experiencing a life free of the mischief that was Ma and Pa. He was better off floating among the otherness of the outside world.

“W—what are you looking at?” A small innocent voice said as it drifted in from behind me.

I looked back to see a little girl. Her once white shirt was dyed a yellowish red with dirt and dried sweat. Her knees were packed with dried red clay hanging from the strands of her ripped blue jeans, a small orange and yellow flower tucked behind her left ear, staying put by her dusted blond hair.

“Just looking at the stars.” I answered. “Wanna join me?” I asked the little girl.

She innocently drifted over to the blanket dropping a few pebbles and rocks she had collected on her way up to the mound and plopped onto my blanket next to me as I introduced myself.

“I’m Bella. What’s your name?” I said.

“Sydney… what’s that on your arm?” She asked me, pointing to the black strand on my left forearm. I had used a needle from my sewing kit and a black pen to precisely poke a feather into my arm so that the void and my brother were forever close to me.

“It’s a crow’s feather. It represents the void.” I answered.

“What’s the void?” She asked in return.

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Looking at my watch, I recorded the time. “You’ll see in about 1 minute,” I said.

Slowly, a red pinprick lifted into the sky, muscling its way through the air. She seemed entranced by the red object as it disappeared into the dark starry night.

The night air was cool and crisp as we continued to watch and wonder what mysterious destination the starship was en route to. She shivered and drew quiet as the night air wisped through our bodies; I put my arm around her shoulder and shielded what air I could as I turned the audio player to its maximum capacity.

Out of the dark cool night, I heard the thin frame of Sydney shutter with hunger. “Do you have some place to go?” I asked the dirt-ladened little girl.

“Yeah…Ma has dinner, I think,” she answered.

“You should probably head back before she starts to worry,” I told her.

She got to her feet, again letting a handful of sand drain form her palm.

“Take this.” I said, handing her the small audio player my brother had left for me.

“What is it?” She asked.

“It’s music,” I said She looked confused, twisting and feeling around on the device as if wondering how music can come from such a strange object.

“Just press the button in the middle and listen. Music is important and should be cultivated carefully,” I replied, remembering an important lesson a strange man had taught my brother and I a lifetime ago.

“Thanks,” she replied.

“Don’t mention it…kid. Good luck out there,” I told her as she ventured down the hill. I could hear “Space Song” by Beach House trickle down the hill. It returned to silence once she had ventured far enough.

I continued looking towards the stars with fondness, reminiscing of the melodies my brother and I were so captivated by.

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Women in Philanthropy and Leadership (WIPL) is an organization at Coastal Carolina University made up of men and women—all passionate about building a community committed to empowering the next generation of leaders. As the director, Hatton Gravely handles the day-to-day operations of the organization. In addition, she plans events such as the Inspiring Women Luncheon series, WIPL’s signature event, as well as the Women’s Leadership Conference and their Celebration of Inspiring Women.

A. Mitchell: Who is one person that has influenced you in a similar way to how WIPL now influences its scholarship recipients and the extending Coastal community?

H. Gravely: I am lucky to have many women influence me. The person who has influenced me the most is my mother, who has pushed me to achieve my best, while also giving me solid advice at every stage of my academic and professional career.

A. Mitchell: In the ten years since WIPL’s birth, what are the three key elements to the foundation’s success?

H. Gravely: Inspiring speakers, committed supporters, and connecting women in the community with the purpose of empowering the next generation of leaders. This has contributed immensely to the growth and reach of the organization. Terri DeCenzo’s vision has made this organization successful. By inspiring women to be leaders and collaborators and to lift each other up, we all become better and improve the world around us. Powerful stories are transformative,* and we have been able to feature incredible women sharing their stories at our events.

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A. Mitchell: As director, what have you found that makes the program thrive unlike other sister-scholarship foundations in the community?

H. Gravely: Our members are committed to an annual donation which supports scholarships. They are not making a one-time donation. They are making a commitment to investing in Coastal’s students by joining the WIPL organization. As a result, we have grown in multitude and have been able to award scholarships each year. Being connected to like-minded individuals who support a similar purpose will keep the organization glowing and growing.

A. Mitchell: What have you personally gained from the time you have spent as director that you will continue to capitalize on in the future of WIPL? H. Gravely: It’s hard to put into words what this organization means to me and how much it has influenced my life.

My many-year involvement in WIPL has made me a better mother, friend, wife, employee, leader, and daughter. I’ve learned from women who have failed and triumphed. Now that I am the director, the conference has shaped me in different ways but still ultimately the same. I’ve met so many talented, committed, and incredible women through the organization—the unsung heroes who work to make the world a better place, students who demonstrate drive and talent for the future, and leaders who are actively breaking glass ceilings.* Women in Philanthropy and Leadership is truly a remarkable organization.

Women thriving* together flourish to new heights. At the recent Women’s Leadership Conference and their Celebration of Inspiring Women, over 850 women gathered around circular tables and in breakout sessions to share stories, form companionships, and absorb knowledge from generational female leaders and speakers. As we move into a new summer season, we remember the consistency that WIPL provides and look towards leaders such as Hatton Gravely to help influence both past, present, and future female generations.

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by Michael Cormier

T

here is a window in my dreams. I can’t remember if it’s a window from my childhood or something my miserable adult brain has conjured up to torment me. It’s a plain picture window—square, four panes, about the size of an oven door through which the sun beams.* No trees obstruct the view of the sky, yet the window sits just high enough to not look out of it. Either it’s a giant window six and a half feet up the wall, or I’m seeing through the eyes of a child.

I’m never certain.

The sun casts long harsh lines across the floor, the muntin* shadows: long spindly spider legs stretching out onto the bare floorboards in his hazy room. Even on my tippy toes I cannot see out. My nose barely brushes the apron.

Cicadas buzz wildly on the other side, outside, out there. This tells me we’re not in some alien dreamscape, convincing me this is closer to some reality, a distant memory fogged through time. My forehead is warm. The room is stuffy. If only I could reach the window above me to open it, to let in the breeze that could blow through this room like a cleansing flood — the big kind, the biblical kind.

Then it begins. Not unlike the slow wail of an ambulance six blocks away; the rising screams. It’s hard to tell what a scream means without context. Hard to find its meaning. We scream for a myriad of reasons: joy, fear, ecstasy, anger, insanity. How could one tell from the high pitched faceless screams of a stranger what they’re screaming about? What is making them so upset? The longer I listen, the more uncomfortable I feel.

It sounds like someone running for their life, screaming in terror at what follows them. It also sounds like some-

one screaming to be found. Lost and alone, trying to be heard, but all that comes out of their mouth is noise, unable to form the words they so desperately need someone to hear. It sounds like the screams of someone who is deathly afraid of the dark, and even in the blinding sun, in the light of day, they are drowning in darkness. Out there. They’re out there, and I’m in here.

How can I help? I hear them, but I can’t reach the window. I can’t unlock it and slide it open even a crack and shout to them from up here in this barren room: I’m here, at the very least, I’m here and I can hear you and all you need to do is calm down and everything will be better and just stop screaming please. I hear you. But there’s nothing I can do.

I frantically turn from the window, the scream still ringing in my ears, just beyond the window. Just out of reach. The room is empty save for a dark heavy door on the opposite wall. At the center of the room sits a chair. An unremarkable chair. Plain, wooden, four legs, high back. A chair.

The screaming is still there, I have to make a choice.

The door or the chair? The door could lead me outside somehow, out of this room, down the hall, down the stairs and out the front door to stop the screaming, hold them and comfort them, tell them that I’m here for them. But the chair means the window. I can pull the chair to the window and climb up and reach the latch and open the window and call down. I want to be there to hold them, but my voice can calm them too. My words can soothe. I can make my presence known at least so they know they are not alone, so they no longer have to scream. But wouldn’t a warm embrace mean more to somebody so hurt, so heart wrenchingly unmistakably hurt and afraid?

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But what if the door is locked? What if it leads nowhere? What if I open it and there’s a maze of hallways that only lead me further away? At least here where I am now, I can hear their screams. It’s a small comfort, I tell myself. At least I can still hear the screams.

I’m pushing the chair across the floor to the window, pushing with every fiber of my being. The chair is heavier than it looks. Am I weak? Am I a child? I still can’t tell. I feel helpless. I feel that whatever move I make won’t be the right one. The chair connects with the wall, and I climb up, scaling this massive, insurmountable chair that seems to grow larger as I ascend.

When I reach the top, I see the window was never locked... But now that I’m here, now that I’ve arrived, now that I’ve finally made up my mind, the screaming has stopped.

There’s something to be said about silence. When that’s all you can hear, you realize it’s infinitely worse than the screams. You can never take it back. No matter how bad it seems, how loudly you have to scream, never stop. Please, never stop. Someone will hear you. It might feel sometimes like you’re the only person left in the world, the only one who can hear your own deafening screams. I assure you, you’re not alone. If you stop screaming, it leaves everyone else in a place very similar to where you might have been before: confused, hurt, angry, desperate. Instead, stop screaming long enough to take a breath and focus, to remind yourself that you are not alone. But keep your voice

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alive, someone hears you and is on their way. It might not always be easy for them to find their way to you, but they are there. Someone is on the other side of that window, trying to find a way to open it.

There is purpose in keeping your voice heard. You are valid. You are loved. We hear you.

Meeting you was on the top of my list. I knew if I didn’t get your approval, it wasn’t gonna work. You welcomed me with open arms and made me feel like we had known each other all our lives. That was a gift you had. You never met a stranger. While you went to school in another town, we kept in touch, often late at night when the rest of the world was asleep. After all, we were both night owls. I remember your smile the most, the way it would light up a whole room. People use that phrase a lot. It was an understatement for you.

The way you smiled at me felt like we shared a joke no one else in the room was in on. I wish I could see that smile today. I miss you. We all do. I know it caused you a lot of pain, but I wish you had chosen to stop screaming by taking a deep breath, enveloped by all the light we wish you felt, the light you offered to the world on a silver platter.

May you be a reminder that our lives matter. Our voices matter. May we take a moment in the chaos to remember the value of your spirit and the importance of our own. To stop screaming and breathe in the warmth life offers instead.

The Sun

by Didi Zacks The Sun is a spectacular sort of sign that somehow, some way, someday, the stars will start to shine again, the strain will cease to sore, the story will speak, will smile once more, and you will be beautiful.

You will believe in the best of both worlds, will breathe beyond the air, will bawl and beg, but still be beautiful, still be you.

Youthful, yearning utopia* within your mind.

You will bask* beneath the broad, bright body of our mother, our Sun, and you will be something spectacular.

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Grievances

by Kim Cameron As you get ready to leave, I can’t help but wonder if this is it.

If it’s time for you to move on, time for me to grieve.

I’d like to think you’ll remember me As I’ll remember you.

I’d like to think I am more than nothing— That just like you, I am more than a memory.* The sun peeking out on a damp day, The sound of children at the park that have come to play, The fuzzy moment* between asleep and awake Is where I hope you remember me, No matter how long it may take.

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Human beings are able to experience an infinite range of emotions, but sometimes we have a hard time sharing a specific feeling with other people. Language is the medium through which we communicate our thoughts and ideas, and it is capable of infinitely expressing such things. However, there is one crucial issue with this: we all have to agree that a word means what it means in order to use it. In English, we have plenty of words that we use to share our emotions with other people. We have basic words like happy, sad, angry, and afraid, and we have more complex terms to share more intense feelings, such as joy, sorrow, fury, and terror.

The languages of the world have words that can be easily translated into English because they express the same basic feelings—the sentence “je suis triste” in French is the same as the sentence “I am sad” in English. However, some of the world’s languages have words for emotions that are so specific that they sometimes require several sentences to express the same feeling in English. Perhaps the most well-known of these words is “schadenfreude,” which is a German word that is used to express the satisfaction that is gained from seeing another person’s misfortune.

Many of these untranslatable words are used for shades of happiness. Norwegians and Danes have the word hygge, which is used to describe a feeling of happiness that comes from being completely content and in the moment. Hygge is a feeling we’ve all felt but don’t always know how to express it easily. The Dutch have a similar word, gezelligheid, which describes the coziness and warmth that comes from being with loved ones. Gezelligheid is a word that many believe is at the heart of Dutch culture, which may only be possible to feel if you’ve grown up surrounded by it.

Some languages have words that can be used to describe a specific feeling in a specific place. The French word flâner has been translated into English before as meaning “to wander around,” but it refers to something much more specific in French culture. It was first coined in the 19th century by educated Parisians, and it describes the act of walking through the streets of Paris with no particular destination or goal. To be a flâneur is to be someone that enjoys absorbing the beauty of Paris simply because it is beautiful.

While words like gezelligheid and flâner are specific to the feeling of one culture or one place, others describe feelings that are so common that it’s almost shocking that we don’t have a word for it. The feeling of frustration that we feel while waiting for someone to arrive, where we constantly check if they’ve arrived, is one we all know but don’t know how to share. Speakers of the Inuktitut* language have a word, iktsuarpok (ᐃᒃᑦᓱᐊᕐᐳᒃ), which describes that exact feeling.

Another of these words is the Portuguese word saudade. Saudade is the feeling of nostalgia and melancholy that comes from the longing for someone or something that you love and have lost. However, saudade isn’t wholly unique to Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries. To the north of Portugal is a region of Spain called Galicia where they speak another Romance language called Galician or Galego. Galician shares the word saudade with Portuguese, but it has a second word for this feeling: morriña. Morriña is, as the Galician saying goes, “a saudade so strong it can kill.”

Morriña is often used by Galicians in diaspora when talking about Galicia. This kind of deep longing is one that the Welsh language has a word for as well: hiraeth.

Hiraeth refers to the melancholy longing we feel for the lost or departed and to the homesickness we feel for the past that may never have happened, a romanticized homeland* that we may have never known.

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Like Portuguese, Galician, and Welsh, Russian has a word to describe a feeling of deep melancholy. Toska (тоска) is possibly the most difficult word to translate into English. It describes a feeling of deep melancholy, but one that doesn’t reach despair because the level of melancholy is immobilizing. Russian author Vladimir Nabokov said of toska: “at its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause” and that “at the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.” Toska is an emotion that has so many shades that it could take entire books to fully describe it.

The question is then, if so many other languages have words for these complex emotions, then why doesn’t English? The answer is that we do, but we only invent new words when we need them. One way that we invent new words is by combining two words we already have. We all know the feeling of anger that is caused by being hungry. There are plenty of languages that would need sentences to share this feeling, but all we have to say is: “I’m hangry.” Another way we create new words is by taking an existing word and using it differently. For example, if a group of friends go out for dinner and one of them talks about it later, they might say something like, “dinner was really chill.” To a person that isn’t familiar with American English slang, this sentence might mean “the food was cold” when it was actually describing the entire experience as being relaxed and easygoing. Another one of these words is vibe. In some contexts, vibe is similar to chill, but it’s not identical. In other contexts, to vibe can mean to get along extremely well with someone, perhaps even in a romantic way. The use of vibe in this way seems to still be specific to young people in the United States.

If English has words as specific as hangry, chill, and vibe, then why don’t we have words for hygge, saudade, or iktsuarpok, which describe feelings that most, if not all, of us have felt? The answer is that we haven’t needed a word for them. We make new words and meanings when we need them, and if we can express ourselves without having a word for every possible emotion, then that works just as well as if we did.

However, our emotions don’t exist in a vacuum; we share them with everyone around us. No matter what language we speak, we all share the same feelings. Our native language is simply an accident of geography, but everyone in the world knows the feeling of happiness just as much as they do of hygge. Everyone in the world knows the feeling of sadness just as much as they do of toska. The important thing isn’t that we have a word for everything. It’s that when we don’t, we still share it with other people. When we struggle, we struggle together, and when we thrive, we thrive together.

In a world that constantly undergoes changes and scientific advancements, Pop-Science* is a literary reflection that combines these with vast imaginations, challenging nostalgia through fictional thrillers and touching on navigating space differently. Andy Weir’s Artemis, reflects the Pop-Science genre and follows in the stardust of the successful book and movie, The Martian. Jasmine Bashara, Artemis’s protagonist, is a young woman in her twenties living on humanity’s first and only settlement on a foreign world — our earthlyknown moon. She was only a young child when she and her father reached the moon, so she considered the moon her celestial* home.

A settlement called Artemis is governed differently from civilization on Earth. Artemis is a tourist settlement designed for Earthlings to gain a taste of a world beyond their own. Jasmine seeks to be an EVA, essentially a tour guide for the tourists on short expeditions outside the bubbles. These bubbles are massive domed structures that regulate and maintain human life on the moon.

Most who venture to Artemis are financially wealthy, but people like Jasmine keep Artemis stable and functioning. Jasmine* performs as most others her age — working tirelessly and hardly sleeping in order to make living attainable and her aspirations a reality. However, she does this in ways not reputable by most.

Criminality is a part of her character, but she is not a morally unjust person. She’s a woman with ambition that the majority seem to fear. Jasmine Bashara is redefined in strength and determination. She often steps out of her comfort zone in order to make her life something small minds see as impossible.

My love for science, technology, and the universe above us lured me to Artemis. Being a Physics Major at Coastal Carolina University, I found myself innately

connected to this futuristic novel. The privatization of space exploration (such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX) recognizes that a human settlement on Mars or the Moon is attainable in the near future. Using factual scientific concepts and human history, Andy Weir crafts a setting that feels more like reality and less like a piece of fiction. From the cramped living quarters that Jasmine endures, to the expansive greenery within the tourist bubbles, the mind of the reader is fed with intuition that seamlessly creates a world that once felt unfathomable. Weir’s use of informality compliments Jasmine’s personality. Her mind is comedic and drenched in sarcasm. Those who find humor in dark situations will love her character. In scenes of life and death, I found myself intrinsically connected to Jasmine for such reasons. She appears to keep herself sane through endless wit and sarcastic remarks.

Artemis nourishes dreams and helps readers reimagine the future. Jasmine Bashara’s character enabled me to grasp perspectives of demeanor, determination, and perseverance that have seeded inspiration within me.

Artemis helped plant these seeds. Jasmine’s experience shows that seeing the universe in a new light is one of the greatest powers of being human, driving our minds to surpass the gravitational pull of societal expectations and instead reach a future others insist is unreasonable.

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This conversation with Biscardi was first recorded and published for the WALL Podcast, which can be found on media platforms, iTunes, and Spotify. The WALL Podcast is created and produced by college students Sam DiFiore and TEMPO’s Editor-in-Chief, Allie Mitchell. In this space, they challenge peers and mentors to conversations covering diverse topics that expand professional perspectives and grow personal interests.

Massimo Biscardi is Coastal Carolina University’s star football kicker, and in this conversation, he shares how he keeps a “short mind,” how he prepares for game day, methods for balancing studies with sports, and tips for adapting and adjusting in both game and life situations.

S. DiFiore: What are your thoughts on mental toughness?

M. Biscardi: It takes preparation and practice. The more prepared you are, the less stressed you will get. In doing preparation, you learn to use your resources. I go to the psychologist. I talk to him every week. He motivates me, gives me tips and perspectives on tough situations that could arise in the game and how to react to those…

Sometimes you’re going to miss as a kicker. You just have to have a short mind and just move onto the next kick.

To get closure, I go back and watch film of the game and see what I did wrong.

A. Mitchell: What steps do you go through in your mind to unwind from game situations that you weren’t happy with the results?

M. Biscardi: If I miss a field goal, it is personal. I am mad at the fact that I let my team down, and I just want to go home and go back to watch film to see what I did wrong. If I know what I did wrong, I can work toward how to fix it, and hopefully I won’t do it again. It’s the mentality part of staying positive that is key.

S. DiFiore: How do you take the adversity that you face on the football field and put it into the classroom or managing relationships?

M. Biscardi: Football requires a lot of discipline and passion, so if you don’t love it, it will be difficult for you.

Having tough experiences on the field teaches lessons of humbleness, dedication, and accountability.

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A. Mitchell: How did you find the balance of being a good student and a star athlete?

M. Biscardi: Sundays are important for planning my week. I map out my week so that I don’t have to think about schoolwork when we travel for football. Stay organized! Don’t procrastinate! Adapt and adjust!

A. Mitchell: How do you mentally prepare to move onto the next step in your football career?

M. Biscardi: In high school, I was just trying to be the best kicker I could be at the level I was at, and that led me to be one of the top recruits in the country. So, I feel like if you try to be the best you can be at a national level, you probably have a good chance of moving on to the pro level or the next level. As for a career outside of football, I would love to be a psychologist for athletes, own my own gym, and coach high school kickers.

S. DiFiore: What music do you listen to before games?

M. Biscardi: I am very broad with my music. Right now, I’m into throwbacks and country music. They are my go-to genres, but I switch it up.

Biscardi’s final take: Have a one for one mindset! As my coach says, once you make your kick, you’re one for one.

You’re not two for three or three for three. I think this can be an approach to life also. If you have a bad day, you still have tomorrow. You always have tomorrow.

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Silent, No. More.

by Gabriella Harden Launching my being through the simmering sun, I refuse rule and the ruler.

Light taunts and handcuffs my eyes as I enter an estranged stratosphere.* I, a blind beacon, lying lifeless amidst lilacs.

Drowning in razor-sharp shards of grass, no, maybe glass—the children, cackling-cousin, relapsing.

Slowly… crashing… cra$h… to ash, curtly-turned ca$h.

Sanctimonious swings, screeching: invaded from within, my mind melts mercilessly into the shower drain— more like a shower strainer— why does it prefer the gunk over the many mental assets?

Infinite, brilliantly bygone full moons fled when She, a pixie, entered into their chilling changlessness.

Her existence encouraged wonder, exploration on many levels.

I inspected her soul, her eyes taunting me back from hallways of hell. Her soul whispered through pores-stomata* of her own.

I failed to utter a single vibration… that was some time ago though.

I think.

Close your eyes tight. Like treasure, keep them locked. Their lies are strident, potent perjury, pungent to the Pisces.

Their minds, fried from hair tied too tight, goodbyes like tires crying.

That boy was quite right when explaining the irony in a single sun ray, on a particularly magical day, deciding to stay and pray above me—a human halo, if I may?

Can you hear the hum?

No, really listen now— the sound of life on high…

I never did catch her name.

The microscopic being’s eyes confidently cracked my hard candy casing, pierced my pupils with honor.

It was brutal. Fruitful.

I thought I had gone blind, but from beauty: light.

It was well worth losing sight.

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Awaken your silenced soul, resurrect your muted mind.

Lucid by The Sea

By Mayleigh Flanigan

I caught myself on a hook too scared to look, feeling things I’ve never felt, searching for someone’s help.

With this achy heart, I’m begging all to stop.

I can’t look up or strain to see a tomorrow.

Darling, we are lucid* by the browbeat sea, you have made it into heaven with me.

It is what comes soon and close— a palpitating coast.

And you, a figment of my imagination, In a world, deliberately existing.

To see this truth is ultimately wise, a reckoning always marked with esteem.

This sea—darling, come—those fickle words my lips meant doubtfully to hum— makes my addled heart earnest.

If it was not for you, nothing would cry, yearning.

It is saddest for these dilapidated, oxidized heart strings, wanton* dates, gut-wrenching them dry of salt.

This is where I see you, you see me, but it’s never how we want it to be.

So here’s to the one behind my waking dreams, wishing you forever dormant, certainly somewhere with no thoughts of me.

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by Zach Green 44

I remember the time I was most afraid. I was in sixth grade and it was the first time my phone erupted in a theatre. At intermission, my dad made me apologize to the people around us, but the damage had already been done. I had robbed the performers of their storytelling momentum by derailing the focus of anyone within earshot of the metal slab in my pocket. That night, I learned the hard way that phones have no place in the theatre.

A decade later, I’m now paying my karmic debts to theater by spending my college career studying Musical Theatre at Coastal Carolina University. I have learned that theatre is a sacred space for all people to take in a story together. It is one of the oldest forms of entertainment. Though many argue that it competes with film and TV for viewership, nothing will replace the experience of being in the same room as thematic storytellers.

Since that embarrassing night, the metal slabs in our pockets have burrowed deep into the fabric of everyday life. They’re no longer a simple means of communication but instead a portal to continuous connectivity.

For younger generations, time spent in this shared digital space is just as important as time spent outside of it. Technology was once the enemy of social life.

Is it now the facilitator?

As a theatre artist, my job is just as much about observing and reflecting life as it is to create a diversion from it. Is there space left for this theatrical experience among a generation with every imaginable reflection and diversion available at their fingertips? Theatre is nothing if not rooted in tradition. Since the Western notion of theatre was pioneered by the Greeks in the 6th century BCE,* very few trends have radically changed the format. These rare transformations are often dictated by a new locale (eg. Shakespearean tragedy at the Globe Theatre in London, American musical theatre in New York City, etc.).

Today’s trends are decreasingly regional. Algorithmic social media feeds homogenize people’s sphere of cultural awareness, enabling more fads to come and go in a shorter amount of time. Kids no longer wait for the grown-ups to make something un-cool because they’re already several steps ahead. This may read as a threat to the theatre industry, perpetually working to retain relevance. Proximity to the trend horizon now depends on how much time one's willing to sacrifice for the infinite scroll.

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Perhaps the glitch in the system is that theatre artists working outside of the social media bubble are at risk of appearing irrelevant, or worse, being at risk of aloofness and inauthenticity. On the flip side, investing too much time in social media removes individuals from the reality that actors set out to reflect on-stage. This problem affects not only those in an artistic space but anyone who is worried that they check Instagram too often. Social media has turned human existence into an ongoing art performance. Through an online avatar and profile, users highlight their best, often-filtered moments. This allows self-revision and also lets followers know what type of user you are so they can engage with your story.

This is exactly how theatre auditioning works. In the audition room and on social media, the individual is constantly optimizing everything about themselves for fear of an incongruous trait of throwing off their target audience (casting directors and followers, respectively).

Occupying this space as a working artist puts career and selfhood in opposition—both are important in the production process.

Writers and composers are perplexed by this predicament. In 2016, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul presented the story of a compulsive teenage liar suffocated by a panopticon of digital screens in Dear Evan Hansen.

Rather than providing a pleasant diversion from everyday life, this musical turns a mirror on the audience’s worst digital habits they never knew they had—all while yielding catharsis. Last year’s Moulin Rouge! The Musical adapts Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film for audiences of the streaming era, in which music consumption is voracious, genre-agnosticism* is de rigueur,* and attention spans last no longer than a segment of TikTok. The movie mashes up 33 different songs while the stage version has over 70. This year, there is even a musical called Emojiland that is eyeing a Broadway transfer, and yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

Many theatregoers and critics may sneer at such aggressiveness and change in the theater landscape, but these are the shows that sell the most tickets on Broadway. Playbill reports Dear Evan Hansen had an average capacity of 101.06% and a total gross of $241,083,756 as of March 8, 2020. Similarly, they reported that Moulin Rouge! The Musical had an average capacity of 100.4% and a total gross of $72,260,392.

New York Times critic, Laura Collins-Hughes, describes 46

Emojiland as a “delectably silly-smart confection” that can brighten one’s mood, consisting of “the kind of sheer fun that sends you back into the world feeling a little more upbeat.” It is clear these types of musicals engage a greater audience due to their ability to transport us to another realm through altering their theater space, thus altering our perspectives and dispositions as well. Their scripts and soundtracks are engaging new young audiences and providing modern gateways into the theatre world, proving that theatre is now more important than ever. Playbill reports that Broadway classics such as The Phantom of the Opera still garner popular attention with the total gross being $1,253,604,023, but the average capacity of these shows is only at 89.7%. Similarly, Playbill reports that Chicago only has a total gross of $681,071,509 and an average capacity of 82.7%. There has clearly been a shift in expectations of theatre productions. Practically every other form of entertainment is now consolidated into the metal slabs in our pockets. Through adaptation to new environments and atmospheres, theatre artists must commit to telling cutting-edge stories in real-time in order to save the present and future generations from media-cultural paralysis.

by Bryce Ross

My name is Bryce Ross. I’m a junior in college majoring in Communication Studies with a minor in Political Science. I am an openly queer man, being out since the summer of 2017. I prefer to use the term queer in place of any other term because I feel it best encompasses what I am: not straight. Since coming out, I have allowed myself to become particularly interested in drag and drag culture, though I am not a drag artist myself.

This sect of the queer community has played a massive part in queer history, especially in the gay liberation movement.* In this article, I will address some questions posed about drag and its extensive history.

What is drag?

What isn’t drag? What once was an underground scene with its roots in political upheaval, is now a worldwide, borderline-mainstream phenomenon. With the popularization of the television programs RuPaul’s Drag Race and Pose, small doses of drag are being displayed for outsiders to appreciate. However, as with most sects of queer culture, there are embedded misconceptions and unasked questions that ought to be addressed.

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How did drag start?

Does this mean drag is only for queer people?

Drag began as a gender-bending* party invitation directed mainly at men dressing in women’s garb.

The connection between drag and queer culture was solidified in the late 1920s with A.J. Rosanoff’s Manual of Psychiatry defining drag as “an outfit of female dress worn by a homosexual.” This of course did not only apply to men. Females also dressed in more masculine dress in similar settings. We then have to bring ballroom culture into the question. Ballrooms were spaces for people to dress in gender-bending clothing and compete for awards like Best Feminine Figure and so forth.

Not necessarily. Although drag emerged as a queer practice and still remains dominated by the queer community, anyone can participate. In no way is drag exclusive. That being said, the nature of the drag community is queer, and a cishet person performing in drag would be more or less culturally appropriating, but that’s not to say that allies can’t partake in drag.

As time progressed, these balls were spaces for black queer people to congregate as they had been segregated from the white queer community, and this segregration eventually would lend itself to houses.

In the 60s, Black and brown queer youths would band together and live in a shared space with the mother of the house typically being a Black transgender woman.

Drag emerged as an artform for queer people and a solace for those who had been shunned because of their lifestyle. To this day, drag has been used as not only an artform but a political statement as well since existing as a queer person is inherently politicized. Figures like RuPaul popularized drag, making it transform into something even more mainstream with his television show debuting in 2009, normalizing the artform greatly. Since then, the series Pose has received critical acclaim for revealing the history of drag, especially for Black and brown artists. This show expands upon the house settings, the AIDS crisis, and ballroom culture all on a mainstream television channel.

What is the difference between drag artists and transgender people?

These two labels get conflated so often by outsiders of the queer community. Drag artists are performers.

They create a character and embody them. There is a separation between the self and the drag persona.

Transgender individuals identify with a gender other than that which they were assigned at birth. This is not a character; it is who they are each and every day.

They don’t get to “turn it off” like drag artists can.

So if someone wears makeup or clothes that don’t conform to gender stereotypes, is that drag?

Not at all. Some people just like dramatic makeup. If someone goes grocery shopping with a dramatic makeup look or costume-like clothing adorning their bodies, they are not participating in a performance (although I would argue that we’re always in the performance that is life). Some people just enjoy looking a certain way.

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What’s the difference between drag and crossdressing?

Is there a specific store most drag artists shop at?

Crossdressing is not a performance either. It is normally used to characterize dressing as the opposite sex, but clothes don’t define intention, nor do clothes have an inherent gender assignment. Anyone can crossdress, and anyone can do drag, but crossdressing is not drag.

Crossdressers are not inherently artists.

In short, no. A lot of drag artists make their own garments as well as use a combination of stage and everyday makeup. There are some drag stores in big cities, but most artists try to budget well as drag is not something to take up for accumulating wealth. It is said that drag actually costs more than it pays. You spend so much on the look only to get a little bit of show-pay and tips, which depend entirely on where you perform.

That being the case, a lot of artists shop at bargain or thrift stores, fabric stores, and so forth. Additionally, drag families can circulate garments to keep tradition alive.

Are the only drag artists cisgender* gay men?

Nope. Not only can cisgender women do drag, but trans people can as well. Transgender men, women, and others can do drag, and multiple transgender women have competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Just because there is a separation between trans people and drag artists doesn’t mean trans people can’t be drag artists. Often, drag is a caricature of sorts. Cisgender men typically create a caricature of a woman to perform as. Realistically, drag is anything people want it to be. Men can create a drag persona of another man if they want although it isn’t common. Some people do live in drag. One of RuPaul’s most famous quotes is that “we’re all born naked and the rest is drag.” A popular conceptual drag artist that has risen on Instagram goes by the name Salvia. She is a transgender woman from the U.K. that often goes out in her “drag” persona.

Her jarring physique can be described as alien-like and has been covered by the likes of Vogue who has done numerous interviews and videos in which she discusses her “extreme” look. There really is no limit to what drag can be.

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Do more queens dress as (or are inspired by) famous people or more personal choices?

I definitely think celebrities can influence a drag persona. Take Derrick Barry for example. He began his career as a Britney Spears impersonator and has since established more of an individual character. I would say most artists choose who they want to be and what looks work for them. In a lot of ways, drag can be an extension or an amplification of the self.

What about those who dress in private, how do performance artists feel about that?

I know that everyone has a different journey with drag.

There shouldn’t really be any gatekeeping for the drag world. There has been a lot of buzz, especially within mainstream drag culture, of older queens who think the new age girls are breaking unspoken rules. The argument from the younger queens is that drag, or any other performance of womanhood, doesn’t follow any specific rules. Women come in all different forms, so drag that imitates women can as well. It’s not about looking the most like a biological female. It’s about creating your own persona and being good at whatever it is that you do.

Drag, even with its rapidly changing definition, has its power for bending gender expression. It doesn’t take a certain kind of person to do drag. Shy and introverted people are equally welcome to the drag community as the loudest extrovert. Rules are invisible for counterculture. With all of this being said, make sure to support local artists, small artists, abstract artists, and so forth.

The normalization of the artform has paved the way for so many great artists of all different walks of life, and allowed them to extend their art to new audiences. In drag, everyone can truly find something they enjoy, from performance to concept art to convincing feminization. There truly is a queen for everyone to enjoy.

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Falling Short

by Haley Johnson I’ve always known someday my life would end.

The truth, like barbed wire, snared* my wicked heart– guilt and shame, I am bearing my sins.

Can I forgive myself? I fall apart.

My throat constricts as I drop to my knees, surrender all, while His hands lifted me when I prayed “please.”

No judgment, only love it seems for a sinner like me. His graceful gift shows mercy I’ve never known.

Where others change, He refuses to shift.

Years pass by in everlasting* growth.

Lying in the palm of Your hand, I know I fail You, Lord, when I refuse to stand.

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Soul-Searching In an Abyss* of Space

by Sabrina Seidl Slowly but surely, we fell together.

We collided like the morning sun, kissing the sky at the crack of dawn.

Our souls met.

They twisted and knotted and fought each other until they fell back exhausted.

That is when I became we and you became us.

Overwhelmed and tired by every misdemeanor and idiosyncrasy* that drove us apart, found their way to match up the pieces we were so desperately seeking for.

The glory of your lips against mine made the oceans twirl and rumble with satisfaction but calm after we withdrew.

It was a fire beneath all others when our souls melted as one.

We were us, and we were new.

We took our new-found souls and raced to every mountain, sang to the world.

The wind carried our love and drove it to the most unexpected places.

Across the seas and through the echoing caves as our hearts once were.

Cold and hostile until we met the one who could tame even our darkest thoughts.

You were the thread that stitched every part of me into you, a masterpiece made whole.

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Rosemary-May was growing uninterested of leaning on the Oak tree by the Eywa River, sipping warm tea, and of having nothing more pressing to attend to. Once or five times she had peered into the teacup her hand was holding, but it had no answers or companionship within it, “and what is the use of an afternoon,” thought Rosemary-May, “without someone to share it with?”

So she was considering in her own space on her home planet, Lathai, and contemplating whether the pleasure of making a dwarf-star crown would be worth the trouble of getting up from her slouched position against the Oak, when suddenly a chipmunk with oversized eyes peered at her from around the trunk.

There was nothing so very surprising in that, nor did Rosemary-May think very much of this creature until she heard the chipmunk spit out its storage of food and comment, “I’m from Mars, what planet are you from?” But when the chipmunk took a pair of sunglasses out of his tiny backpack, Rosemary-May started to her feet, realizing she was oblivious to the peculiar notion of the chipmunk, for it scurried across her mind, that she had never before seen a chipmunk with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with stardom, she ran across the plain after it and was just in time to see it catch the wind and spiral into a distant puff of cloudiness.

Rosemary-May jumped to follow and to her surprise, the wind current didn’t drop her, it carried her!

The wind tunnel drifted upward, and so suddenly Rosemary-May realized she was no longer on her home-planet and was instead somewhere that looked tangerine and sapphire at the same time. Were her eyes playing tricks on her?

Either the sky was very tall, or she was traveling through time, for she felt like no time and so much time passed all in the same moment. First, she tried to decide where she stood, but it was too bright to capture any sight; then she looked off the edge of the planet and noticed that the surrounding space were filled with purple whippedcream looking clouds and stars that had mouths; they were all whispering poetry to one another. Rosemary-May looked around her feet for the chipmunk but only saw his backpack; she did not like to be alone, for even when she was alone by the river, she had her tea and daffodils to keep her company.

Step, step, step. Would she suddenly feel another spring in her step? Would the chipmunk come back to guide her around this new place? She didn’t know. There was nothing else to do, so Rosemary-May soon began singing a song she remembered hearing the wind play on the way here, “Wonders of me, wonders of you, I want to explore this planet and show all the winds to you.” The chipmunk must have come back because Rosemary-May heard a voice say, “Follow me, missy. I have Mars to show you.” Rosemary-May felt that she was imagining this, when suddenly, she felt a scratching at her ankle. The chipmunk looked at her with his enlarged eyes and with an insistent look that she should follow him. She took a step toward his tracks—all the while wondering where the wind went that had carried her here so softly.

Rosemary-May was not a bit scared, and she felt nervous in the moment. She looked up, but it was all dark above; all except for the whispering stars, that echoed hushed tones into the night. Not a moment disappeared. Away went Rosemary-May like the faraway place she just traveled from. She was close behind the chipmunk when she turned the corner, but he had once again disappeared.

Rosemary-May followed a path made of baby stars that led into a small passage, not much larger than her driveway back home; she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest space she had ever seen. Oh, how she longed to wander among those beds of golden lights and those crisp fountains that looked like mountain streams, but she could not get through the passageway. There seemed to be a forcefield keeping her out. She felt like a child locked out of a candy story, but more tortuous. This was the mother of all stores—and all candy.

The chipmunk peered at Rosemary-May from inside the solar-lit garden. He once again wore the backpack upon his back and now that Rosemary-May was looking at him, he pulled out a notepad and pen. These two items were oddly much larger than the backpack. Rosemary-May noted this and carried a curious look across her face. The chipmunk spelled out, “You are on Mars, and this is the entrance to the Solar Palace. In order to come in, please take off your shoes and write a poem for the Prince.” Rosemary-May looked around her ankles for something to write with and on. Sure enough, both appeared, and she began to write the love letter that had been stored upon her heart for the last decade.

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By Selena Mendoza

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Being a student is hard. Being a first-generation student is harder. Every day, I live with the fear that I’ll screw it all up. What will I do today that will make me lose all my scholarship money? What will I do today to cause me to fail my class? What will I do today to feel completely lost and stupid? The truth is, I do my damnedest to avoid finding the answers to these questions. Instead, I do whatever I can to prevent those answers from ever finding their way to the light. Days pass, and I always wonder where this English degree will take me. I hope it takes me around the world, traveling to see different perspectives and cultures. I hope it continues to show me all I do not know, would not know without this expensive piece of paper.

Everyone asks if I’ll be a teacher. My fear is that I will be, or worse, that I won’t get a job at all with my degree. I advance through my courses with ease, and I have yet to master conjuring up a clear image of my future. I still struggle with financial competency and responsibility. I still struggle with feeling overwhelmed and scared and broke. I still struggle with the fear that my parents will never be in a better position than they are now.

I wouldn’t say I grew up poor, but we are definitely a working-class family. I’m the daughter of a Mexican immigrant who works hard to provide for his family and a mother who would work if her health allowed her.

Instead, she does what she can to make sure we have everything we need and most of what we want. That’s always been her main priority but even moreso since her initial cancer diagnosis at age 29 completely shifted her life path. Her re-diagnosis two years later shifted it all over again. Luckily, she’s still here and healthy (for the most part), but as I said, her life is nothing like she expected. She may be cancer-free, but not being able to work because of out-of-the-blue health problems was not her plan.

My whole life, I’ve watched my parents do absolutely everything possible to make sure my siblings and I are taken care of and supported—work extra hours, pick up side jobs, take out loans. I grew up wanting to make sure they don’t have to do that, to make sure that, for once, they’re taken care of. It’s the classic first-generation student problem, right? We want change, and the weight of that change is on us. That’s what it feels like, at least. What do I do to deal with that? Well, I started working at age sixteen. I graduated high school. I went

to college on a full ride. I graduate in May. What comes after that? I’m still asking because I still don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing after all of this, and all of this ends in May, whether I want it to or not.

They don’t really talk about the first-generation student after college, do they? Going through school, we’re offered a spotlight to receive resources more easily, to make the chaos less confusing. But what about after that? What about the real world? I’m not sure if the lack of conversation is comforting or concerning. I know it’s not realistic, but my mind can’t help but think that it means we’re either given access to a reliable career with the special wave of our degree, or we completely disappear off the face of the planet before even getting to the good stuff. I say “good stuff” because before that, we’re working our butts off. A lot. As fun as it is to be the “first in the family” to rack up academic accomplishments, it sucks. It takes time. It takes energy.

It takes a lifetime of working so hard and thinking so far ahead, it’s hard to keep track of what steps should be taken next. It takes learning to live with the responsibility of figuring it out alone. It takes accepting that you may always be stuck with that responsibility: not knowing.

I’ve never been able to fully envision what I want to be “when I grow up.” It’s changed so many times, I often question if I landed on the wrong one. What’s a first-generation student doing as an English major anyway? Am I really counting on supporting myself and my family through a string of maybe-gonna-get-published poems? I’m not sure. I used to be frustrated that everyone expected us to have it all figured out by eighteen… Four years later, and I’m feeling a lot of that same frustration. Is it fear? I think it’s both. I really thought college was the ticket, that an acceptance letter meant that the path ahead of me would clear up. To my surprise, just as the path was starting to clear, all the weeds and thick underbrush returned. Three changes of my major later, I realized what made me happiest was what came naturally all along: reading and writing.

I’ve always had an affinity for listening to other voices and feeling like mine should be heard—not in the pretentious way but instead the helpful way. I want to help shape minds. I want to show others how to see the world differently. I want to heal. I guess you could say I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders too for some reason. I’m not sure why, I don’t imagine for

a second I’m relevant enough for such a huge responsibility. I think I want to provide for others what I feel I lacked a lot of growing up: Security. Comfort. Knowing.

As I get older, I can’t deny or ignore this deep longing to cry over change if I dedicate too many thoughts to it.

Even when I go through life without acknowledging the signs, glimpses of certain things make me feel a deep ache within my chest. The wrinkles forming around my mom’s eyes. The age and years of working making my dad’s face seem more worn. My younger brother and sister getting closer to high school graduation. Getting closer to college graduation myself, preparing to step into the shoes of my parents—paving a path and aging along the way.

It’s always felt like I’m always planning my next accomplishment, never soaking in the present moment. I’ve poured so much of myself into my academic identity that I tend to easily lose myself in the chaos. I live with this fear that I’ll never contribute anything substantial to the world. I fear that I’ll live my life simply passing through without ever really taking the time to get to know myself. To get acquainted with a life that doesn’t always consist of stressing about the future but instead maybe just looking around and taking a deep breath and appreciating the way the sun falls on the trees on that particular day. I just want to be happy. I just want my family to be happy. They can’t be happy if they’re always stressing about the future too. They won’t ever say that, but I know. I live it.

I look out the windows on sunny evenings, wishing to go outside to feel the warmth envelop my body, the breeze cause my hair to tickle my nose. But I can’t.

I have too much work to do. I have a paper, I have to read, I have to call my mom to check in, I have to email these people back, I have to write, I have to plan this event. My mind isn’t allowed to stop. Breaks don’t exist here—an everlasting stairwell to imagined happiness and tranquility, the ability to exist with a more-quiet mind. I catch myself driving down roads I’ve traveled my whole life, noticing a field of trees demolished or a childhood favorite gas station change owners. I feel overwhelming sadness for the details passing me by and the everchanging nature of life. I grieve over the moments I consistently miss: sunrises, my siblings’ chorus concerts, beach days, my mom’s laughter on a daily basis, stargazing, my dad getting less serious with age, days free of work.

Every day, I wake up thinking of what I have to do. I go to bed thinking of what I have to do. I never have a blank mind or a cleared schedule. Despite these urges, I fight against them because I’m scared that my lack of responsibility affects not only me but my family as well. If I mess up, things for them are messed up. I open the windows and convince myself that is enough.

It is enough because it has to be. There is work to be done. The luxury of breathing carefree can wait a while longer, at least until my parents can experience it for themselves—no more debt, no more exhausting shifts in the heat, no more worrying.

I always said I would never settle for money. After a lifetime of watching my parents sacrifice their dreams for income, I’ve been adamant on sticking to what makes me happy. The irony is the amount of sacrifices I’ve made in order to one day get to that reality. I’m insisting on a future where my happiness comes before my financial security while consistently failing to take the time to do what makes me happiest now. For the most part, I don’t mind the sacrifices, but sometimes, I get tired. Then I think about how tired my parents must be, and I keep going. The irony continues in the fact that much of one’s ability to live happily and comfortably does depend on one’s financial stability to some degree. That’s the whole reason I work so hard—to obtain the financial security and stability in life that my family never had the means to provide but relentlessly tried to do so anyway.

On a daily basis, I try to convince myself that I will obtain both—a job that makes me happy but also pays well. I also get reminded how often people settle.

Every decision and potential reality in my life feels like I’m walking on a balance beam—one wrong move and I fall. Not enough moves and I miss my shot. It gets really dark and blurry sometimes. Things can get out of focus quickly. They can also be focused on for too long. I think I focus too much on what I will provide for others: my parents, my siblings, the people I encounter, the world around me.

A lot of times it seems like an unattainable task, providing for everyone else. I look at all the people and the writing that exists, and I get flooded with defeat. How will I ever make my presence known? What foundation do I even have? It’s hard to remember when it’s all selfmade. When it somehow always feels like it’s slipping away. But what I’ve decided to do is something I always come back to, something that has carried me through this life of not quite having a place.

Reading and writing is my escape, and it always has been. It was easy. It exposed me to different perspectives and possibilities, imaginations beyond my own. It provided a path to feeling seen, feeling heard, feeling purpose in making sure others are heard too. It’s been an avenue to getting through all the trauma and lifelong fears just by reading or marking words on a page.

My whole life I’ve been uncertain of nearly everything— my identity, my style, my sexuality, my life path, my future—but the one thing I’ve always been sure of is the feeling of being inspired by a single line, the sound of certain words as they fold into one another, the many different stories and realities that remind me just how endless and abundant life can be, that there is always hope and possibility. English just fits.

I see my parents, and I get sad because I feel they haven’t lived enough. They haven’t gotten to do half the things they dreamed of. I think I fear my life will mirror theirs, not because it’s anything to be ashamed of. I’m

not ashamed. Not at all. It’s just that my mirrored life would mean I’ve failed the people that taught me to work hard in the first place, the people that gave me a reason to. I’m supposed to go a step above, one that I can help guide them to. I don’t know that I will. I think I’ve established that a thousand times over, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop.

If nothing else, I know that my purpose is to continue the fight. I’m still figuring out exactly what that fight is or what all it entails, but something within me tells me it will be worth it. Maybe it’s the American Dream my dad always believed in. Maybe it’s the gratitude for each breath instilled by my mom. Maybe it’s all of that and the writing that brought me to where I am today: unsure of what’s ahead but moving forward—pen in trembling hand, mind on a warm picnic with my family, noticing the way the sunlight falls on the trees on that particular day—Enjoying the “good stuff.”

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GLOSSARY Abyss: Intellectual depths; an immeasurable, bottomless great space.

Bask: To take pleasure or relax in an atmosphere.

Canopy: An ornamental covering often used to provide shade from the sun.

Celestial: Positioned or relating to the sky; related to heavenly existence.

Chaos: A state of disorder and/or confusion.

Cisgender: A person whose sense of personal identity corresponds with their birth sex.

Crème Brûlée: A dessert consisting of a creamy custard base and topped with a texturally contrasting layer of crystalized sugar; also known as burnt cream.

Crisp: The quality of being cleancut and clear.

De rigeur: French phrase meaning, “required by etiquette or custom.”

Ebb and flow: A phrase used to describe something that changes in a repetitive, regular way.

Everlasting: Never ending—even in the face of trial and tragedy.

Fuzzy moment: A moment that is plump with comfort and offers feelings of anticipation.

Gay liberation movement: A social, political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged LGBTQ+ individuals to counter shame with gay pride and to engage with direct action.

Gender-bending: The act of dressing or behaving in ways that do not conform to conventional gender roles and norms; a nontraditional, androgynous portrayal of gender roles.

Genre-agnosticism: A perspective of affirming the uncertainty of genres.

Glass ceilings: A metaphor representing the invisible boundary that keeps a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level of hierarchy.

Greeks in the 6th century BCE: By the 6th century, the following cities emerged as dominant in Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes.

Idiosyncrasy: An individualizing characteristic or quality in relation to temperament or constitution.

Inuktitut: A group of Inuit dialects spoken by the Inuit people, a group of indigenous peoples of Canada, Northern Alaska, and Greenland.

Ivy: A woody evergreen Eurasian climbing plant that typically has glossy emerald five-pointed leaves.

Jasmine: A climbing plant that develops flowers used in teas or perfumery; Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara, the protagonist in Andy Weir’s Artemis, which debuted as #6 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Lucid: Showing ability to think clearly; bright or luminous.

Memory: A unit in the brain that houses something remembered from the past.

Muntin: A strip of metal or wood that separates and holds in place the panes of glass in a window.

Mystical place: A dream-like location that caters to imagination and fantasy.

Paradoxical: Something that carries contradicting qualities.

Pop-Science: An interpretation of science intended for a modern audience that combines cultural references and factual evidence.

Pores-stomata: Tiny pores or openings used for gas exchange, mostly found on the underside of plant leaves.

Romanticized homeland: The feeling of extreme nostalgia one might feel when they are separated from home—whether this be a person or a place.

Snared: The capturing of a person, place, or thing.

Stratosphere: The second layer of Earth’s atmosphere that sits above the troposphere and below the mesosphere.

Sun beams: Fractionated rays of sunlight that cascade down from the sky.

Thriving: To develop maturity and flourish vividly.

Transformative: Causing a significant, lasting change on someone or something.

Utopia: An imagined place or state of being within the world that offers uniformity.

Wanton: Being without limitation; one given to self-indulgent behavior such as flirtation.

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